Teach English in Longwen Zhen - Meizhou Shi

Unit 19 talks about teaching special groups, which include teaching beginners, individual students, children, a monolingual or multilingual class, and those who learn English for a specific purpose (business). These groups all require a special set of skills, some more than others and some even coinciding with others. Teaching beginners and/or children can be a rewarding experience. Because these 'beginners' can range from young to old and real to false, it is important to properly observe and adapt to the needs of the class, but at the same time being able to respond to the students as individuals. Also, the teacher should always compliment and give attention to children, who hold a curious mind but short attention span. As easy as it was to gain their interest, it can be just that easy to lose it. When teaching Business English, a lot of teachers feel intimidated because they feel they don't have enough experience teaching this kind of group; it is important to realize, however, that the English teachers aren't there to teach them about business, they already know a lot about business, but to teach them how to speak English to compliment their business-related work. Here, the teacher can research a bit about his/her client's job and perform a 'needs analysis' to gain a better understanding of where the lesson plan should go. This is why a healthy group dynamic is also an important thing to keep in mind. There's a chance the clients may be grouped, not by their language ability, but by their company job type or for varying economic reasons. It can also be fun and interesting to use your 'ignorance' of the business world as a means for them to rectify that by explaining their work. It will be beneficial to the clients, and to the teacher, as this can serve as real communication.